


Eye of the Hurricane

by Suffolker



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suffolker/pseuds/Suffolker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events of Children of Earth hurt Lois with a swiftness she cannot cope with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye of the Hurricane

**Author's Note:**

> I've gone and shamelessly made up Lois' entire backstory and family with some detail, because she was so lovely and I wanted her fleshed out a bit more.
> 
> Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine.

There is a peace to it all, once the trouble is over. Detached as she is from all the panic and the shouting, from public inquiries and parents wide eyed and unable to believe what they’ve barely just escaped, Lois cannot find the emotion she feels she ought to have. Her realisation was long before these people’s, her crisis had to pass unmarked without the whole mourning of a nation, and when she looks hard at herself, in the middle of sleepless nights with fogged movements, she feels like the eye of the hurricane. Around her the whole world is crumbling, (too late, she thinks, they ought to be thankful for what they have saved) but she is unchanged, unaffected.

It was far too easy, really. She’d handed Bridget all the information, helped by a bitter, angry Gwen, and that had been it. She’d expected maybe to have to do something after that, to explain, maybe become some kind of public ambassador in order to calm people and assure them that all was well, but apparently not. She’d woken up one morning to a large amount of money in her bank account, and no way of contacting anyone she could possibly talk to. Gwen wouldn’t answer her phone, Captain Harkness had disappeared and the one in the suits was dead, she’d learnt, Bridget would turn away with a gaze full of pain at the sight of her. Everything was very new still, and strange, but Lois felt oddly old all of a sudden.

“Youthful” she’d been called before, “full of enthusiasm” said in admiring voices after interviews she’d breezed through like a fresh of breath air, but that’s not the case anymore. There’s an age to Lois Habiba now, to the woman who sits at home, jobless, purposeless and wallowing in her own apathy like a person ripped apart and thrown into a corner by merciless events. She’s just another casualty, a fact she knows but cannot bring herself to care about. She’s quit her job, thrown the direction of her life to the dogs, and none of it matters. The screaming of children echoes in her head all the time now, not as a nightmare but as a repeat, a singsong round played off the telly over and over until it drums behind her thoughts and makes her sick with how little she cares. She doesn’t give a damn about them all, with their squealing and their detachedness and their lack of realness. The news reports are just a reminder of the fakery of the world she wanted to inhabit, of the two faced oppressive humanity of it all. She doesn’t want to work for these people. She doesn’t know what she wants to do anymore, but this is not it. Perhaps nothing is.

***

It’s a morning when Lois receives the phone call, two weeks after the end of it all. She debates whether to answer, but the ringing is insistent and she pushes her covers away, hangover groaning and anxious to be listened to as she hoists herself up onto one elbow.

                “’ello?”

Sun filters through the curtains and she winces; it must be later than she’d thought.

                “Lois, is that you?” asks a South London accent, and Lois grins, all wallowing self-pity forgotten for a second as she sits bolt upright and throws off the duvet.

                “Yeah, yeah it’s me!” she babbles, phone tucked into her neck, throwing open the curtains “how are you? Why are you calling?; not that I’m complaining I mean I’ve missed yo-“

                “Come home.” The voice is abrupt, “I mean just briefly, for a day. Mum wants you home, and Danny and Kate’ll be there too and you can meet Karishma and the kids. Please, Lois.”

The voice is laced with disappointment, like it knows the answer already, and for a brief egotistical second Lois wants to prove it wrong. She can do this one little thing and escape the muck of it all, for a bit. It’ll be good for her.

                “Fine, sure, when?” she replies.

The rest of the day is a bit better after that, the best Lois has had in a fortnight. She showers, makes the bed, collects rubbish in plastic bags – just basic things – then puts on some clean clothes and leaves the flat. It feels nice to be out in the warm air, and although there’s still the apathy which isn’t about to be dissipated by a call from her sister, it feels better somehow. She thinks she’s swimming through treacle, but perhaps a little thinner this morning, and she laughs humourlessly at the bad analogy.

In the afternoon Lois puts on some washing, rents a film instead of mindless telly, cooks herself a meal. She has some purpose for the next week, at least, and it feels remarkably good (dear god, has it only been two weeks? Her life shouldn’t have disappeared like this). She still gets horribly drunk though, still can’t sleep, still spends half the night crouched over the toilet moaning quietly.

When she wakes, it’s with the certain knowledge that things aren’t going to get better.

***

Lois hasn’t seen her family in such a long time now. It’s been her fault completely – she’d wanted to gentrify, leave the Estate behind in every way, forget about her childhood home and the halls which smelt of urine and the shouting of teenagers with far too much time on their hands. It’s almost nice to think of this particular, deep seated attitude now when she walks into the stairwell, because it’s a childish and familiar one without bad memories. It isn’t apathy.

There are screaming kids, like she remembers, and she wonders briefly if any of these could be her nieces and nephews (no, they’re not the right age) while she looks out the windows, over the bare concrete landscape. It still smells like piss, which is nice and familiar. Someone’s drawn their name on the wall, which is a mindless stupidity that makes her grin, and forge upwards, trepidation forgotten. She _really_ wants to get home.

It’s not until she knocks on the familiar door that her stomach twists. Will they forgive her? Is Mum still going to watch her with sad eyes, like the last time, and clutch Francis’ hand? She deserves it, she supposes. Sonya, for all her kindliness on the phone, will probably slap her (and god it’s been two years, she definitely deserves it). Kate’ll be 17 now, Danny might not wrap her up in his big bear hug and pick her up while she squeals, so much taller than her.

The woman who opens the door is unfamiliar, but smiling.

                “Ssh,” she says, “they didn’t hear the knock, let’s make it a surprise.” Her eyes are dark and smiling and she takes her hand, whispers “Hello Lois, I’m Karishma” before dragging her through the flat. It’s smaller than she remembers and the hall is narrower and danker, but the voices from the front room still hit her like a wave.

Lois can’t do this, all of a sudden, hates the feeling of this stranger’s sweaty hand, wants to wallow in self pity and dirty clothes and bastardised philosophising about the futility of life, about the pointlessness of rescuing children, of life with nothing to do, but she’s being hugged and manhandled and mawed and shouted at. She’s dazed, lets Danny hoist her up off the ground, notes Kate’s boyfriend and the way Sonya kisses Karishma on the cheek whilst studiously ignoring her. Mum’s eyes are sad, but Francis’ are not and he delegates, makes it better between them while Lois perches on a sofa, tea in hand.

If this is it, if this is what all her work against her government was worth, she wants nothing of it. She wants to laugh, point out how wrong she’s been all her life, (to think I cared!) but simultaneously to withdraw into her calm, to become the eye of the hurricane again. Mostly she wishes she cared, could care, could understand the horror and grieve and mourn with these serious, serious people around her, but she can’t.

There’s cake in her hand and mould on the walls and a little boy in a green school uniform slips through the door. He runs up to Sonya and she lifts him up around her waist, whispers into his ear before winding her way carefully over to Lois, through the humanity of everything.

                “Arjun, meet your aunty Lois” she says.

***

His eyes are very big and very brown, and his hair is soft between Lois’ fingers as he sits on her lap, hands twisted in the black curls until nightfall, and she’s crying because suddenly she cares very, very much indeed.

Perhaps things might get better after all.


End file.
